On Monday, Google announced Android, a new software platform designed to provide open access to mobile phones for application developers. The company also announced the Open Handset Alliance, a multinational alliance of 34 companies, including several chip makers, handset manufacturers, and mobile operators that will be working together to develop handsets and services that leverage the new software.
The new platform — jargon for the software that will fuel the phone and its various functions — has the support of handset makers like Motorola and Samsung; mobile service providers like Sprint, NTT Docomo and China Telecom; chip makers like Intel and Texas Instruments; and pure Internet players like ebay and Skype.
Google, which lobbied for open access rules for the 700MHz rules, is planning on bidding on some of the spectrum licenses. Even if it doesn’t win any of these licenses, the new Android software could put Google in a prime position to be one of the main suppliers of software to handset makers that could help them comply with the FCC requirement.
“This is a shot that is going to be heard around the world, but it’s just the first shot in what is going to be a very protracted battle in the next frontier of the mobile web,” said analyst Michael Gartenberg, at Jupiter Research.
The aim is to bring the mobile phone model closer to the open model of the Internet, where the owner of a computer can use whatever applications and content they wish without needing permission from the owners of the Internet data lines.
